The name game - spring onions v shallots

Richard Cornish

Shallots and spring onions can be confusing.

I am a recent arrival in Australia and am confused as to why so many food magazines refer to spring onions as shallots. It is my understanding that spring onions are sometimes referred to as green onions, salad onions or scallions, but surely they are not shallots? C. Griffith

Dear Mr Griffith, there are lot of odd things about the federated states of Australia that you'll have to get used to. Sydney: potato scallop; Melbourne: potato cake. Sydney: rockmelon; Melbourne: cantaloupe. Sydney: beachwear; Melbourne: black. Victorians only got standard gauge rail track in 1962 - before then, passengers from Sydney had to get off the platform at Albury to change carriages. According to the Onions Australia official website, spring onions (the green ones on the right hand side of the picture) are Allium fistulosum and are 40 centimetres of green leaf and a slightly enlarged bulb. The site reads, ''True shallots (Allium cepa, aggregatum) are grown for their bulbs only. Shallots marketed in NSW are similar to true spring onions and are harvested with about 40 centimetres of green leaves and a slightly enlarged bulb. They are marketed in bunches of about 20 plants with three bunches (per) kilogram. Shallots grown and marketed this way are also known as eschallots (Allium ascalonicum).'' Let the comments begin.

What is the difference between jerked meat and jerk chicken? A. Cousins

Thanks for this question, which is more like a feed line from a Carry On film. Nonetheless, I shall take it as a serious query. The word jerky comes from a Peruvian term ''charqui'', which means dried meat and is both a verb and an adjective. Meat is jerked by cutting it into very fine strips, sometimes salting it, and drying it in the sun or by a fire. The same word travelled to Jamaica but took on a different meaning, as African slaves had a massive impact on the cuisine. Around its shores, you'll find vibrant and aromatic spice mixes that blend the heat of the New World chillies with the aroma of Old World favourites such as allspice, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon. In Jamaica, ''jerk'' refers to this spice mix, which is used as a dry or wet marinade for chicken, pork, other meats and seafood. Jerking in Jamaica describes the marination process.

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Recently you mentioned a recipe with sodium nitrite. What is it and where can you get it? M. Bell

Sodium nitrite is a preservative used in the processing of meats. It inhibits bacterial growth and is particularly useful in combating Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria that cause botulism and thrive in air-free environments, such as the inside of a salami. Sodium nitrite stops the haemoglobin changing from a pleasing red-pink to an unappealing grey. It also adds a particular flavour to meat. So what's the bad news? Overconsumption has been linked to cancer. Sodium nitrite is often called for in recipes for cured meat and can be bought online at mistygully.com.au.

I made muffins, and they were tough and riddled with tubular holes. W. Lee

Many muffin recipes use phrases such as ''bring the ingredients together to make a rough dough''. Once the flour has come into contact with the wet ingredients, the proteins in the flour, such as gluten, start to come together to form long strands. This is necessary for structure. If you mix the dough or batter too much more, the gluten strands will become very strong and make the muffin tough. This is why an overmixed dough creates tough cakes and muffins. Another effect of this is that when gas is formed inside the muffin as it heats up, it tries to escape but is held back by the gluten. Eventually it ruptures and forms thin tubes inside the muffin, like vents of lava exploding from a volcano.

Send a question to Richard Cornish at brainfood@richardcornish.com.au, via Twitter@Foodcornishor by leaving a comment on this piece.

18 comments so far

Was delayed at the local Woolies checkout while the checkout person struggled to locate "spring onions" in her products list. This is because they were actually listed as "shallots". Nick Nairn would be less than amused at the mislabelling of his much loved, and oft used, shallot. To me the green ones have and always will be spring onions, or green onions at a pinch, and the little hard sweet brown onions will always be shallots.Though just to confuse the issue, I've also bought and used spring onions that have been allowed to develop a "bulb" which are fabulous in salads.

Commenter

Angelle

Location

Melbun

Date and time

January 22, 2013, 12:20PM

No wonder people respect you for knowing your onions.....

Commenter

Cranky of Croydon

Location

Croydon

Date and time

January 22, 2013, 2:53PM

I used to edit a food magazine: we had a photo taped above every subeditor's desk of a thin green spring onion, a fatter green green onion and a fat brown shallot.

After a while, I had to add a photo of a stodgy but yummy coconutty macaroon and a light, delicious almondy macaron. No discussion was entered into on either point ;-)

Commenter

MsDWrites

Location

Date and time

January 22, 2013, 11:57PM

I feel a sense of stubborn pride that we're standing against the whole world on this 'shallot/spring onion' issue. As a practical matter, I just switch the terms if the recipe is in a NSW-centric publication.

I've never agreed with 'potato scallop' though. It's clearly closer to an abalone than a scallop.

Commenter

Spex

Location

Sydney

Date and time

January 22, 2013, 1:37PM

But having had the NZ paua fritter, if they called it abalone I'd be out of there!

Commenter

MerriD

Location

Date and time

January 22, 2013, 3:29PM

Ok, please please PLEASE help me on this one as I'm no less confused. I still don't know the difference between a spring onion, a scallion and an eschalot!

Richard / readers, would you kindly please provide the correct names to the descriptions below.

As far as I'm concerned, it's shallot, spring onion and eschallot, in that order.

Commenter

MerriD

Location

Date and time

January 22, 2013, 3:30PM

Thanks guys - this is sloooowly making more sense. My confusion seems to arise from having newly arrived in the ACT from nearly a decade in Sydney, having lived in Tassie before that. WHO knew such confusion ran along geographical lines!?

No bulb: eschallot (always), shallot (less frequently)Small white bulb with long green shoots: shallot (often), spring or green onions (less frequently)Spring onion (used in VIC) is synonymous with green onion (more often used in NSW), known in the US as scallions: no bulb, long green shoots.

Commenter

Black Palm

Location

Date and time

January 22, 2013, 6:56PM

I think the answer is the naming is inconsistent and you'll probably need to just try and do your best.

That being said:

Long green stalks barely there bulbs- could be called spring onions, shallots, scallions or green onions (although the 1st two descriptions are probably technically incorrect)

Long green stalks, bulbs - spring onoins, salad onions

Small brown bulbs - shallots, eschalots, french shallots

I guess the key if you're looking at a recipe is to try and work out what it's for. If it's for a braise or sauce, it's probably more likely to be the small brown ones. SE Asian food or salads or a raw garnish, then it will be one of the green stalked ones.

Also the spring onions and green onions are probably largely interchangable, so your recipe won't overly suffer if you get it wrong.